


Our Little Lives

by CallieB



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Multi, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:04:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallieB/pseuds/CallieB
Summary: yodasyoyoprompted:"There are loads and loads of ridiculous reasons for Derek and Stiles to be in a fake/pretend relationship. Maybe another pack is visiting, maybe one of them is trying to impress an ex, maybe they're trying to win a bet, that's three off the top of my head. I bet you can think of more. My point is, pick one and then tell the story from an outsiders POV. Because if there are two tropes I really love it's Fake/Pretend Relationship and Outsider POV. Thing is, I hardly ever see them together. If you could include the Hale pack (Boyd, Erica and Isaac) that would be great. Also, I really love stilinski family feels, so if that could be in there too then fab. Also, I really do prefer Derek to be a werewolf, so there's that. Other than that I leave it to you!"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yodasyoyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodasyoyo/gifts).



> This has been one of the most incredibly fun prompts I have ever written! I really enjoyed exploring a bit of Scallisaac whilst looking at Sterek from a totally new angle, so thank you, [yodasyoyo](https://http://archiveofourown.org/users/yodasyoyo/profile) for the epic prompt.
> 
> I thought I would never need a beta, never having had one before. I was so totally wrong. Literally could not have done this without the wonderful passionyserenity, who brainstormed with me, waited patiently for me to work out plot kinks, and figured out when I said the same thing twice. I couldn't ask for a better beta, so thank you lovely!

July, weather warm. Beacon Hills is peaceful, with no sign of supernatural disaster, although God knows Isaac is well aware that that might change at any moment. Dreams: confusing, with tangled thoughts of Allison and dark confined spaces that have him thrashing about in his sleep and waking sweaty and heaving in his bed. He hasn’t been back here since Allison died, nearly five years ago, and there’s a reason for that.

“I swear, I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t real,” Scott says, when Isaac confronts him with this. “I know you didn’t want to come back.” He looks at Isaac, eyes warm and sincere, and Isaac feels a lump in his throat. The reason isn’t just Allison. It’s Scott as well.

“You really think you can bring her back?” he says. His voice feels rusty, unused. He didn’t go to college like the rest of them.

Scott nods. Isaac didn’t have to ask, really; Scott always tells the truth. “It was Kira,” he says. “She’s been training with the Skinwalkers.” Isaac already knows this – not because he knows Kira particularly well, but because Stiles still sends him long, rambling emails that he secretly loves, full of pack updates – but he doesn’t interrupt. “She thinks that the Nogitsune didn’t really kill Allison. She thinks it just… destroyed her soul.”

“What’s the difference?” Isaac asks roughly. Even now, it’s hard to talk about Allison. Scott… Scott stayed in Beacon Hills, stayed with his friends, his pack. He moved on. Isaac hasn’t.

Scott looks troubled at the question, and Isaac is reminded again, forcefully, that he’s Allison’s first love. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I don’t really get it. Kira seems to think that there’s a ritual we can do, to bring back her soul. Kind of like when Lydia brought back Peter.”

Despite himself, Isaac can feel hope rising up through his chest, because if Allison can come back – if they can bring her back – then maybe… maybe he can come home. He had to leave, because it felt like he didn’t have the right to mourn her here, like this was Scott’s place, but even though she’ll never love him the way she loved Scott, if she’s alive he might be able to stay. “What do you need me to do?”

They meet at Derek’s loft, two nights before the full moon. Weather cloudy, although no scent of rain, and the air feels hot and thick because of it. Isaac dreams of open high clifftops where every step could send him stumbling to a painful death, and is glad to wake up in the morning.

Derek seems different than Isaac remembers. He used to be something more than a stranger, an older brother, but now he’s not and it makes Isaac’s chest constrict painfully to see him. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter – there are kitchen counters here now, bright and shiny and somehow far more domestic than Isaac can imagine Derek being – with his arms folded, but he smiles as soon as Isaac walks in the door.

“Isaac,” he says, and then to Isaac’s surprise he reaches out to embrace him.

Stiles, standing nearby, claps Isaac on the shoulder. “We missed you, buddy,” he says.

“Thought you didn’t like me,” Isaac mumbles, and then feels stupid for saying it. Derek snorts, and Stiles pats his shoulder again.

“Yeah, well, I thought you stole my only friend. I was a stupid teenager,” he says, and Isaac is struck forcibly by how  _ mature  _ he sounds, tall and oddly graceful yet with the same creased smile on his face. Derek snorts again.

“Was?” he says, and Stiles shoves him lightly. Derek laughs, and Isaac feels… comfortable.

It’s surprisingly easy to slide back into the pack as they discuss how they might restore Allison to life. Lydia is there, twirling a thin biro between her fingers as she explains how she did it with Peter – who himself stands just slightly apart, watching them from the spiral staircase – and so are Erica and Boyd, beautiful and youthful as ever. They’re holding hands, which is new to Isaac but doesn’t seem to surprise anyone else.

Scott is reading some of the emails Kira has sent him – they’re not together anymore, apparently, which makes Isaac’s heart contract painfully. If they do bring Allison back, it’s Scott she’ll want, and both of them will be out of his reach forever. Not that they were in reach anyway. He shuts down that line of reasoning, because his heart is beating too fast and Derek is looking at him oddly.

Stiles, of course, is in charge of making the actual plan. “Pass me the thing,” he says authoritatively, and Derek hands over a purple highlighter. “It’ll be on the full moon. I think it should be Scott  _ and  _ Isaac, like Kira said—”

“What should?” Isaac interrupts.

“Right, sorry,” Stiles says, and Isaac remembers – as if he could forget – that it was his body the Nogitsune was possessing when it killed Allison. “When Lydia brought Peter back from the dead, she used Derek’s healing powers to restore his body. Kira thinks that it needs to be someone who has an emotional connection to the person, and apparently Dr Creepy—”

“Deaton,” Derek says calmly.

“—agrees, so that’s why Kira thinks we should go with you and Scott.”

Isaac looks between Stiles and Scott. “Why me?” he blurts out. “Peter only needed Derek—”

“Peter was actively engineering his own return,” Derek says. “Allison may need more support.” From behind them, Peter lets out a low, somewhat disturbing chuckle; Isaac ignores this.

“Right, so,” Stiles says. He’s still holding the purple highlighter; Derek’s eyes are on him. “Derek and Boyd will do the digging part. Lydia has special banshee-ing—”

“Stiles,” Lydia says flatly. Her eyes glitter.

“Super important banshee rituals,” Stiles amends hastily. “Erica, you’re going to make sure nothing comes to get us, and Scott and Isaac will use their healing powers.”

Erica snorts. “Funny how you don’t have a job, Stiles,” she says, shifting slightly so that her breasts threaten to burst out of her top. There’s a certain grace to Erica’s deliberately over-revealing clothing, as though she’s daring anyone to comment on it.

“I’m supervising,” Stiles says loftily.

“That’s what you said last time,” Derek says. Stiles elbows him in the side; Isaac half-expects Derek to retaliate, but instead he smiles somewhat shyly, looking at the floor. Isaac frowns, but before he has time to dwell on it, Scott is speaking.

“What do me and Isaac have to do?” he asks, which is a good question, and probably one Isaac should have thought of earlier.

Stiles shrugs. “Nothing, really,” he says. “Use your healing juju. Derek did it unconscious last time—”

“Believe me, if I’d been conscious—” Derek mutters darkly, and Peter chuckles again.

“—so obviously it doesn’t take too much concentration,” Stiles finishes smoothly. He shoulder-checks Derek again, and then kind of leaves his body there so that it’s touching Derek’s. It’s weird, and once again Isaac expects Derek to comment on it, or at least move away, but he doesn’t. He just kind of stays there, and Isaac thinks of Boyd and Erica holding hands and realises that there’s more than just that that he’s missed.

He asks Scott about it the next day, at the diner. Weather warm-ish, though still with furling patches of cloud above them, and the same stuffy air around. Dreams hopeful, with Allison’s blinding smile mixed in with the occasional frightening flash of a blade. There’s not much to prepare for the ritual – except for Lydia and Dr Deaton, but it’s not as though anyone can help them – so now they’re just killing time. Waiting.

“Stiles and Derek?” Scott repeats. He has a small smile on his face. “I think so. They haven’t said anything, but you know what Derek is like.”

Yes, Isaac knows what Derek is like. Quiet, shy, secretive – a little like Isaac himself. But Stiles—

“Wouldn’t Stiles tell you?” He gulps. “He’s your best friend.”

Scott shrugs. His eyes are on Isaac, and once again there’s that uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. “He has secrets,” Scott says. “I figure he’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

There’s a pause, and suddenly it’s yawningly wide, filled with all the things they’re not saying. Isaac isn’t saying how much he’s missed Scott, missed that smile, those eyes, the way Scott is so unflinchingly loyal and gentle and open. He isn’t saying how much he’s missed Allison, how much he’s hoping that this will work, how crushed he’ll be if it doesn’t. And Scott… there are things Scott isn’t saying, too, but Isaac has no idea what those are.

He says, awkwardly: “I guess plenty has changed since I’ve been away.”

“It’s not been the same,” Scott agrees, although it kind of sounds like he’s saying something different than Isaac. He takes a breath. “Erica and Boyd are together, too,” he says.

“Yeah, I saw yesterday,” Isaac says. There had been a time - an incredibly,  _ incredibly  _ brief time - when he’d harboured something of a crush on Erica himself. She was so sexy, so confident in herself, and Isaac was so… not. It had passed extremely quickly, especially once he started getting to know Allison. “It makes a weird kind of sense.”

Scott nods, and then they talk about other things. Talking to Scott is easy, as uncomplicated and  _ fun  _ as Isaac remembers. They’ve been in touch a little over the years, of course - the odd phone call, one or two emails, although Scott has never been as good at communication as Stiles - but now Isaac finds himself wishing he’d made more of an effort. Scott is the same person Isaac remembers from five years ago, but Isaac isn’t. He’s a stranger to his pack.

Full moon night: unexpectedly clear skies, as though some supreme force understands that they need to be able to see what they’re doing. Isaac’s dreams have been more tumbled than ever, confusing and hollow, with fear threading through them and the constant claustrophobic memory of the freezer he used to be locked in when his father was angry with him. He wakes up in a sweat in the early hours of the morning, and doesn’t sleep again before it’s time.

He meets the others at the graveyard. He hasn’t been back to this spot since Allison was buried, and it makes him feel shaky to walk across the ground that he had once helped his father to dig out. Stiles is chattering, and even Lydia is speaking to Erica about some intricate part of the ritual, but Isaac can’t force his jaw to unclench.

Scott looks sideways at him. “It’s going to be alright,” he says.

“You always say that,” Stiles says, which is exactly what Isaac was thinking.

Scott is still watching Isaac. Gently, he touches Isaac’s arm, which feels oddly thrilling. “No, I mean…” He trails off. “Even if it doesn’t work,” he tries. “Even if it doesn’t bring her back, you’ll stay, right?”

Isaac clears his throat, aware of how dry it feels. “I haven’t got anywhere to live,” he says. He sold his dad’s house years ago, but they both know what a thin excuse that is. He says, more quietly: “I’m not sure I can be here without her.”

This is true, but there’s more than that, because being around Scott is almost as excruciating as  _ not  _ being with Allison. Isaac has always loved Scott, always wanted Scott, but having Allison made Scott happy, and he could live with that. Allison was like a tie that bound them, and with her gone, it’s too damn painful to be in Beacon Hills.

“I get that,” Scott says. He hesitates. “It’s not been easy being here without you, either.”

Isaac doesn’t have anything to say to that. He’s had a hard time of it too, these last five years. Fortunately, he’s saved from having to reply by the appearance of Derek, tall and stone-faced, bearing a large shovel in his hand.

“Derek!” Stiles exclaims, too loudly. “My main man, Der-Bear, old Sourwolf himself--”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, not looking nearly as annoyed as he should. “Stop trying to make this less weird. It’s weird.”

“Well,  _ yeah _ , because you just  _ made  _ it weird,” Stiles grumbles, but there’s a fond sound to his voice, and despite himself Isaac finds that he’s hiding a smile. There’s something remarkably constant about the fact that Stiles and Derek still bicker the way they used to; the fact that they’re now almost certainly dating doesn’t surprise him the way he might have thought it would. They’ve always been like this, always had this back-and-forth relationship, even if it wasn’t quite so close before. It’s nice.

Lydia clears her throat. “Let’s get going,” she says. “Erica and Stiles, you’re on the look-out. The last thing we need are over-enthusiastic security guards getting in our way. Everyone else, pick up a spade.”

“Lydia,” Stiles says, sounding pained. “I already assigned jobs.”

Lydia just raises her eyebrows at him, and he heads over to Erica without making further comment. Isaac looks over at the little pile of shovels and spades that Boyd and Derek brought; he reaches out for one.

Allison’s grave looks a little more weathered than Isaac remembers it, her name carved into the stone as though it’s been there forever. He looks sideways at Scott. “Does Chris know we’re doing this?”

“No,” Scott says. “As soon as I mentioned Allison’s name, he hung up the phone.”

“You should have let me speak to him,” Isaac says without thinking. There’s a pause, during which he wonders exactly how distant Chris has been from the pack since he returned from Europe four years ago; he and Isaac have stayed in contact, and if Derek is like an older brother, Chris is like the father Isaac would have wanted.

He knows Chris is dating Scott’s mom, now; knows that he’s happy, that he and Derek are oddly friendly. He lost his wife, his sister, his father, and he’s managed to move on from those things. But not Allison. That was where he and Isaac always bonded, because neither of them could get over losing Allison, even where Scott managed to. 

Scott glances at him, but doesn’t say anything. Isaac rests the tip of his shovel against the ground in front of Allison’s grave. It’s wrong, so wrong, to be desecrating this place like this, without the permission of her father. 

Carefully, he pushes the spade into the ground, scooping up a large clod of earth, and dumps it to one side.

It gets easier after he’s done it once. He can almost forget what it is that they’re doing, he and Scott and Boyd and Derek, working alongside one another in silence as they strip away the dirt that covers Allison’s coffin. It’s just another supernatural job to be done, one of those things that he’d taken such a deliberate step away from all those years ago.

The others went to college. Chris and Stiles both told him: Stiles to a pre-FBI program, Scott to study veterinary sciences. Erica already has her first job as an architect; Boyd did computer science. Lydia, of course, went to MIT. They moved on, went away to different places, while Isaac for all his travels stayed static in one. He didn’t go to college. He didn’t even finish high school. He has no idea what he’s going to do with his life.

But then, Allison never finished high school either. If they manage to do this - manage to bring her back - she’ll be in exactly the same position as Isaac. 

She’ll still be eighteen. Which is how old he feels. 

There’s a dull thudding sound as Boyd’s spade hits the coffin. It isn’t buried too deep down, for which Isaac is grateful; he’s sweating, streaks of dirt on his arms and clothes. Stiles, peering over their heads nearby, looks distinctly green. Slowly, the werewolves uncover the ornate wooden box that contains Allison’s body, scraping the earth away from it so that the moonlight hits the top of it.

“Oh God,” Scott murmurs. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Of course you can,” Lydia says fiercely. “Open it.”

There’s a pause, and then they do.

Allison is inside. Isaac knew Allison would be inside, knew he would have to look at her, see her body, but that’s different to actually seeing it. Actually opening the heavy lid of the coffin, helping Boyd and Derek to heave it away from the grave, and looking inside to see her.

“She looks the same,” Scott says quietly. It’s true; from his years working with his dad, Isaac knows that burying people in coffins vastly slows the decomposition process. Allison doesn’t look alive, not at all, but she’s far from a skeleton.

Her face is pale, hollow, with no colour to her cheeks. There’s an unpleasant waxy pallor to her skin, and her clothes are rotted away. She looks like a parody of herself, a strange distorted version of the pretty, laughing girl Isaac remembers. There’s still chipped nail polish on her fingernails, her hands folded together on her stomach, dust and grime layered on her skin. Isaac can’t quite look away, despite how horrendous it is to see her like this.

“Let’s get on with this.” Lydia’s voice is brittle. She’s always been stronger than the rest of them. Isaac sneaks a look at Derek; he’s seen the most death of any of them. His jaw is set, but his eyes are soft. On the other side of him, Isaac can see Stiles looking concerned as well.

Scott says in a choked voice: “What do we do?”

“Touch her,” Stiles says. His voice is uncharacteristically grave. “That’s all you have to do. Touch her, and, like…  _ will  _ her to heal.” He hesitates. “Derek, why don’t you go help Erica patrol? We don’t need you here anymore.”

Derek looks up sharply. “I’m fine,” he says. 

“No, you’re not,” Stiles says. “None of us are. Don’t be a martyr, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek says automatically, but he leaps out of the deep hole beside the gravestone anyway. Isaac watches with some sense of amazement, because in all the time he’s known Derek, he’s never seen him give way on something so easily. Nevertheless, Derek is already moving away, dark eyes flickering around the dark graveyard.

Scott reaches hesitantly out for Allison’s hand. Isaac doesn’t want to follow suit, can’t imagine touching that heavy, lifeless skin, but he knows he has to. He doesn’t complain, even as the scent of her death blows stronger as he moves closer; he meets Scott’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Scott says.

“Together,” Isaac says, and they both take one of her hands.

It feels cold and dead, rubbery and just downright awful. Isaac closes his eyes, feeling tears building behind them. There’s something so wrong in this, in feeling her papery shredded skin in his hand, in having her so close beside him when she’s supposed to be buried deep below the ground. Blindly, he reaches out with his other hand, and find Scott’s. They hold hands, all three of them in a little circle with a dead girl.

Moon bright, strong above them. Isaac’s head is filled with ghastly memories, of her dying, of Lydia’s scream, of a box he can’t get out of and a fate he can’t avoid. Lydia is speaking, saying words he can’t understand, and the moon is shining on Allison’s waxy white face, but all Isaac can think about is how wrong this feels. How wrong it  _ is _ .

“Come back,” Scott whispers, and Isaac’s eyes fly open. “Come back to us.”

“What if she can’t?” he says, before he’s really realised he’s saying it. “What if she  _ can’t _ ?”

Scott looks at him, his grip on Isaac’s hand tightening. “She can,” he says. Isaac can feel the tears spilling over, unable to believe it. “Isaac,” Scott says, and this time his voice is an Alpha’s. “ _ Isaac _ . She can.”

And Isaac holds hands with the two people he loves, and wishes as hard as he can that it might be true. That he might see her smile again, see her laugh. That Allison might come back to them.

That’s when the cold, still, lifeless hand wrapped in Isaac’s own twitches.


	2. Chapter 2

Moon still full, skies dark. Isaac doesn’t need to dream, because there’s no way he’s awake right now; Allison, cold, dead, Allison, is moving. She’s opening her eyes, wide and dark, and in the dim white light of the moon Isaac can see a flush of colour sweeping across her skin. He realises he’s still holding her hand, and he releases it quickly.

“Allison?” Scott breathes. He looks… ecstatic, no hint of the fear coursing through Isaac’s chest, the heavy thudding heartbeat reverberating around his blood.

Slowly, so slowly that it’s painful, Allison moves her head. Her hair is thick with dirt, and Isaac is pretty sure that some of it has fallen out or rotted away. She turns her face, so that Scott is the one she sees first, and a creased frown appears on her brow.

Her voice, when she speaks, is dry and raspy, like the crunch of tyres on gravel. “Scott?” she says in a whisper. Her eyes flicker around, taking in the darkness, the piles of earth, the fact that she’s lying in a coffin. “What—?”

“It’s okay,” Scott soothes. He glances at Isaac. “We’re here. It’s okay.”

Isaac doesn’t say anything. For a moment, Scott frowns at him; then he looks back down at Allison, his face soft. He slides an arm under her neck, helping her to sit up, and then scoops her into her arms as though she weighs no more than a feather. Isaac could do that too – one of the perks of being a werewolf – but he’s paralysed to the spot, unable to do anything but look at her.

She still looks somewhat dead, but she’s alive, so very, very alive in Scott’s arms, her head lolling against his shoulder. Lydia strides forward determinedly, touching Allison’s pale arm.

“Alli,” she says, her voice gentler than Isaac has ever heard it. She actually sounds almost choked up. “Oh, _Alli_!”

“Lydia,” Allison breathes, almost dreamily. “Lydia, I don’t understand—”

That’s when she looks up, and sees Stiles smiling at her. And promptly screams her head off.

It takes a long, long time for Allison to calm down. They have to make a dash out of the graveyard, terrified that someone will hear the dreadful noise she’s making, so Erica and Boyd stay behind to fill in the grave. Scott holds Allison to his chest as she screams, stroking her hair and pressing his mouth chastely to her temple. Isaac watches stupidly, feeling as though he’s in the middle but not able to leave.

Stiles, his face ashen and pale, leaves. He mumbles an apology, but Scott won’t let him finish it, turning kind eyes on Stiles. Isaac understands. It’s not Stiles’ fault that it was his body that was stolen. Derek goes with him, of course, one hand on Stiles’ shoulder, and Isaac sees him tuck a strand of hair behind Stiles’ ear almost unconsciously.

“It’s okay, Allison,” Scott says, rocking her in his arms. They’re sat on a park bench near the edge of the preserve, Allison still cradled on Scott’s lap. “He’s gone. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

She cries so hard that Isaac is afraid it’ll tear her apart, great heaving sobs making her entire body shake. She still looks half-dead, her skin paper-thin as though it’ll fall right off her bones if she moves too much, but her tears make her seem alive. They’re full, robust, and somehow that’s just a little relieving for Isaac. No one dead could cry like that.

It’s going to be a long recovery for Allison, that much is plain to see, and as Isaac stands awkwardly watching Scott comfort her, he realises that it won’t be him to see her through it. Of course not; how could it? It’s Scott. It’s always been Scott.

He’s not quite sure how they get through the rest of the night. They take Allison to Chris, which is the one part that Isaac knows he absolutely has to be there for because Chris might actually kill Scott otherwise.

“Isaac,” he says warily, opening the door to the frantic knocking. He’s wearing sweats and an old t-shirt, his eyes sleepy. Scott is waiting with Allison in the car. “What’s wrong?”

Of course, something has to be wrong; it’s late at night, and Isaac is sure his face is wild. “Chris, you can’t freak,” he says, which of course has Chris tensing, ready for a fight. “It’s Allison.”

Chris does freak – how could he not? – and he cries, as well, clinging onto Allison like he never wants to let her go. They explain, Scott’s words halting and uncertain, and Chris is angry but Isaac knows he’ll get over it.

So they leave, because at the end of the day, Chris is Allison’s family, and then it feels kind of awkward. Scott gives Isaac a sideways glance, and Isaac has to fight the unexpected desire to kiss him.

“I can’t believe it worked,” Scott says. His voice is soft, reverent.

It’s just because of the heightened emotions. It’s Allison he really wants to kiss, not Scott. Isaac makes himself nod. “You were the one who said it would,” he says.

Scott laughs shortly. “I know, but—”

“You were trying to make me feel better,” Isaac says, and suddenly feels a little guilty. “You don’t – you don’t always have to.”

Scott frowns. “Have to what?”

“Make people feel better,” Isaac says.

“I like to,” Scott begins, but Isaac shakes his head.

“This was… tough. For you. It’s okay to say that.”

Scott’s hand is on Isaac’s shoulder, and he can’t remember how it got there. Scott has a weak smile on his face, his eyes suddenly just a little watery. He says, hesitantly: “Thank you,” and Isaac feels a lump in his throat.

Weather middling-warm, sky a sort of faded blue. Dreams: heavy and oppressive, like thunder building to no release, so that Isaac is sweating and unrested when he wakes. He thinks about going to see Allison, isn’t sure if he should. He goes anyway, of course, because she’s alive and he should be feeling good about it, but he isn’t.

Scott and Lydia are there already, of course. Allison looks healthier, cleaner and less wild. Her hair is plaited neatly behind her head and she’s scrubbed all the dirt out from underneath her fingernails. Chris sits on the couch beside her, hovering protectively.

“Isaac,” she says, just a little dully, as he comes in. It’s not fair. They were just beginning to think about being something when she died, and now it’s gone. Her lower lip trembles. “Thank you.”

Fortunately, she sounds as though she means it. Isaac sits down, shrugs awkwardly. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he says, voice breaking.

“Me too,” Allison says, and she smiles, and for a moment the weight is lifted from Isaac’s chest. He recognises that smile. He loves that smile.

They talk inconsequentially about pack things, about college and life and everything that she’s missed. Isaac tells her about travelling with Chris, which actually makes her laugh because it takes her aback so much. Thinking about it, the last she knew they hated each other. Scott talks about being True Alpha, how everything has seemed to calm down in the last few years, how they’re all practically adults now.

She swallows at that. “Not me,” she says quietly.

Isaac can’t help himself. He says: “Me neither,” and grins when she darts a look at him. “I never went to college.”

“Why not?” she queries, and his smile fades.

“I don’t know,” he says, and suddenly he just wants to kiss her. He can’t, of course, because Lydia is sitting beside her look all-too-knowing, and Scott… He gulps away his guilty thoughts of Scott. “Because of you, I guess.”

Allison looks away. “Oh.”

“You’ll be going soon,” he points out, immediately desperate to rectify his mistake. “We could… I mean, I’ve always wanted to go—”

Scott looks at him sideways. “You have?” he says, sounding surprised.

Isaac shrugs. “Well, yeah,” he says, embarrassed suddenly. “I guess I was still grieving, and then it just seemed too late.”

“It’s never too late,” Scott says sincerely, and Allison gives a quick unexpected smile.

“I’ve proved that,” she says. “I’d like to go to college with you, Isaac.”

The warmth in Isaac’s chest lasts all the way into the afternoon, when Isaac walks through town to the diner because he’s hungry and he doesn’t know where else to go. Allison is spending some time with Lydia – girl time, as Lydia informed him and Scott fiercely at the door – and Scott, as improbable as it seems, is at work.

The diner is full and crowded and Isaac doesn’t want to be there, so he goes to the little coffee shop around the corner instead, feeling the sun beat down on his head as he walks down the street. The July weather is coming out in force, the few days of clouds and chill fading, and he’s unexpectedly happy.

The door of the coffee shop is propped open in deference to the warm weather, a little gaggle of teenage girls coming out of it as Isaac approaches. He pauses, waiting for them to pass by, and as he does he catches a familiar pair of scents from within.

He looks through the doorway. Derek and Stiles are sitting at a table, cups of coffee in front of them and Stiles’ hands gesticulating wildly as he speaks. Normally Isaac wouldn’t listen in, but today – today he wants to hear what Stiles is saying, for no particular reason other than that he’s feeling good and he likes the fact that Derek is as well.

“I don’t know, dude, it just felt so fucking humiliating,” Stiles is saying, and there’s an odd, twisted expression on his face that gives Isaac a pang. He waits awkwardly by the door, listening, and it’s a testament to the attention that Derek is paying Stiles that he doesn’t scent Isaac himself. Stiles shoots Derek a quick glance. “I know it was, like, forever ago, and I’m totally over him—”

“I know you are,” Derek interjects peaceably, and for a moment his hand moves a little, like he’s about to reach for Stiles.

“—God, I am _so_ over him,” Stiles says again. “It’s in the past, never darken my doorstep again, yadda yadda yadda. But for some reason I just saw him and it all came flooding back, you know? Not how I felt about him, but, like… how I felt about myself when I was with him. Which was not great. Does that make any sense?”

Derek leans forward. “Yes,” he says. “You were going through a lot back then, Stiles.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I know I’ve never met him, and I’m probably a little biased, but Stiles… he was kind of a jerk to you.”

“I know!” Stiles says. “I know I have nothing to prove to him. But I see him, and suddenly I’m telling him all about my sexy boyfriend, older, mature, cool… Like, why did I need to tell him that? He has no claim on my personal life.”

Derek smiles. “It’s completely normal to want your ex to know that you’re over him,” he says. “Chalk it up to experience, Stiles. And you probably won’t run into him again, but if you do…” He gestures to himself, grinning a little wolfishly. “Sexy boyfriend, older, mature _and_ cool, at your service to show off.”

Stiles laughs and throws a packet of sugar at him. “Shut up,” he says, and Isaac decides that he doesn’t need to get coffee right now, because it seems pretty obvious that they’re about to start kissing. He turns, walks back down the pavement towards the diner, and finds himself smiling.

It’s nice that they’re together; everyone’s been wondering for so long now. Isaac may not have seen Derek for some time, but every time he’s around Stiles it’s obvious he’s happier. He goes into the diner, ignoring the fact that it’s crowded, and orders himself a burger and a milkshake. He’s thinking, really thinking, because if Derek has been brave enough to be happy—

He calls Scott. Scott picks up the phone on the second ring, which makes Isaac unreasonably pleased. “Isaac? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Isaac says. Of course Scott is worried; Isaac can’t actually remember the last time he called Scott for any reason. “Sorry. I just…” He trails off, unable to be brave himself despite his heady thought train. “How’s Allison?” he says instead.

Scott exhales. “You saw her at the same time I did,” he says. He hesitates. “Where are you?”

Isaac tells him, and twenty minutes later Scott is there too, sitting opposite him in one of the little booths and eating curly fries. He looks tired, his hair rumpled and creases under his eyes, but he’s still smiling for Isaac. Isaac feels a stab of something, because Scott always has a smile for him.

“I saw Stiles and Derek at the coffee shop,” he finds himself saying.

Scott smiles still more widely. “That’s nice,” he says sincerely. “I mean, they’re nice, you know?”

Briefly, Isaac relays the conversation he overheard. “It’s good that they’re not… lonely.”

“Like you?” Scott is watching him far too closely. Isaac shrugs.

“Sure,” he says.

Scott bites his lower lip. “Isaac, please stay,” he says eventually. “You don’t have to be alone anymore. You have a pack, and we’ve missed you.”

Isaac thinks about leaving, finds he doesn’t want to, still isn’t sure he can stay. He wishes, suddenly and fiercely, that Scott hadn’t told him the _pack_ misses him, that it could be more personal than that, but then he tells himself off for it. Scott is asking him to stay. Scott is his Alpha, always has been, always will be, and Isaac… Isaac wants to listen to him.

“Okay,” he says, and ignores the swell of relief that rises inside him at the word. Scott flashes him a grin, and then they talk about other things.

They head over to Allison’s house afterwards; she texts both of them to tell them that Lydia has gone home, and they take that as the invitation it is. Scott chats lazily on the way, his shoulders relaxed, and Isaac feels warm and comfortable. The air is smooth, balmy, and Isaac finds himself thinking that he wouldn’t mind being here for a long time.

Scott stops outside Allison’s house. The lights are on inside, and Isaac can smell Chris in the kitchen, Allison upstairs in her bedroom. But he stops too, looks at Scott. There’s something he doesn’t know in Scott’s eyes, and then before he can figure it out Scott kisses him.

It’s not anything wild or passionate. They’re already standing close together, the heat from Scott’s body radiating through Isaac, so he barely has to lean forward to touch his mouth to Isaac’s. His lips are soft, so gentle that they’re hardly there at all, and Isaac feels his eyes closing as though someone else is controlling them. His nose brushes against Scott’s, every touch of skin like a line of fire streaking through him, like electricity.

Sometimes, when he’s guiltily pictured this in his head, he’s imagined the kiss deepening, becoming dirtier, more passionate, but here in the moment Isaac finds himself content. He doesn’t need the feel of Scott’s hands, the taste of his tongue; he has this soft graze of lips, something infinitely pure and beautiful.

Almost as soon as it’s begun, the kiss is over, Scott drawing back and touching the back of his own head with one hand. Isaac thinks he should probably feel awkward, but he doesn’t; there was something very right about it, and the way that Scott is grinning reassures him.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Scott says.

Isaac finds himself smiling. “Since I got back?” he asks. “Or… before?”

“Before,” Scott says definitively. He looks towards the house. “We should…”

Suddenly, there’s a lump in Isaac’s throat; for a moment, he’d forgotten about Allison. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and Scott frowns at him. He clarifies: “I know – I mean – you and Allison—”

“And you,” Scott says, his voice impossibly gentle. Isaac doesn’t answer, doesn’t know how to, and after a minute they walk up to the front door, and Scott rings the bell.

Allison is pleased to see them, had a good day with Lydia, although the whole time she’s telling them about it Isaac feels as though his lips are burning with the kiss. He doesn’t know if it’s a secret, doesn’t know what it means, and it doesn’t seem to have stopped him from wanting Allison with everything inside him.

“I feel really bad,” she says after a while. “About Stiles.”

Isaac, who’s been a little checked out of the conversation, repeats abruptly: “Stiles? Why?”

She bites her lip. “Because of the way I reacted when I saw him,” she says. “I know he’s been really struggling with guilt since it happened, Lydia told me.”

“It’s okay, Allison,” Scott says soothingly. “He understands.”

“I know,” she replies. “But I don’t want to make it worse for him. It wasn’t his fault, and I’m fine now anyway.”

“He’s fine,” Isaac says, thinking about the coffee shop. “I mean, he’s happy.” And for the second time that day, he tells the story of what he overheard. He’s actually feeling a little guilty about it – there must be a reason Stiles and Derek haven’t told the pack themselves – but Allison looks so troubled that he can’t help but do what he can to smooth the lines from her forehead.

Allison looks ecstatic. “That’s amazing!” she says. She frowns a little. “I guess I never would have thought of Derek and Stiles together, but then… I don’t know, it makes sense. They always had that bond, even when I knew them.”

Isaac wants to tell her he loves her, doesn’t. “Yeah, I haven’t really seen them since then either, but I felt the same,” he says.

Allison looks pensive at this. “You kind of checked out after I died, huh?” she says.

“Yes,” Scott says unhappily, even as Isaac is shaking his head. “We really missed him.”

Allison puts her hand on Isaac’s arm, and his stomach clenches. “Please don’t check out again,” she says softly. She looks briefly at Scott. “We need you.”

The kiss is still warm in his memory, Allison’s touch pulsing through his arm. Isaac looks from one to the other, feels better about loving both of them than he should. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s August now, the weather hotter still, and Isaac is bursting with the knowledge that he’s in love with Scott and Allison. Dreams: a mixture, some beautiful, shining, full of the kiss Scott gave him and the sound of Allison’s voice telling him she needs him, but the rest dark twisting nightmares that remind him that the good dreams are nothing more than fantasy.

He loves them, he loves them, he loves them; it’s so clear that he just wants to scream it out loud, but he can’t. He talks to Boyd, talks around the subject, but he thinks Boyd knows what he means from the sideways glances he gives him. He and Allison are applying to college together, the Sheriff pulling what strings he can to have her legally recognised as alive again, and Isaac finds that he’s actually excited for October. He’s got a plan, a pack to see him through, and Allison by his side.

Pack night, that’s what Stiles calls it: crammed into Derek’s loft, sitting around drinking beer and eating pizza while they watch a movie. It’s Lydia’s turn to choose, so it’s something artistic and French that Isaac is actually enjoying. The beer doesn’t do anything anymore, but he’s twenty-two and he’s allowed it, so he sips it anyway.

Stiles is sitting on the small couch with Derek – just a little distance between them, laughable now that Isaac knows the truth – and Isaac is on the large couch with Scott and Allison. Erica and Boyd are practically piled in each other’s laps on one armchair, and Lydia sits primly on the other. She’s dating Jordan Parrish, apparently, but she’s yet to invite him to any pack meetings. Peter is somewhere around, always, like a wasp in the room that you’re aware of but not yet quite afraid of, but Isaac isn’t thinking about that.

He told Erica and Boyd about Derek and Stiles, and Allison, he thinks, told Lydia – she, of course, claimed that she already knew everything there was to know about them – but so far everyone has been quite good about letting them keep their secret. Isaac’s not sure why they feel the need to, but it’s up to them. Still, it’s kind of cute watching them shuffle on the couch, obviously wanting to touch but not quite daring to do it.

Erica seems to be thinking along the same lines, waggling her eyebrows mischievously at Derek. “Comfortable, guys?” she asks in a sugar-sweet voice.

Stiles looks up suspiciously. “Yes?” he says. He glances at Derek. “What did she do?”

“I don’t know yet,” Derek says warily.

“Your lack of faith is hurtful,” Erica says, and when Stiles rolls his eyes, she claps a hand to her heart. “Please don’t be mad with me, mommy!”

Stiles gives her the finger. “Shut up.”

Allison frowns. “What—?” she begins.

“It’s a thing Erica does,” Lydia explains crisply. “Stiles is the den mother.”

“I’m the _what_?” Stiles exclaims indignantly, and Erica bursts into peals of laughter.

“Because you look after the babies,” Scott says, sounding just a little apologetic. “And…” He hesitates.

Stiles glares at Scott. “And what?”

There’s a silence, during which everyone appears to be exchanging looks. Only Derek and Stiles look bewildered. At last, Isaac speaks up, although only after he’s had a little nod from Scott. “We know,” he says.

Stiles just looks nonplussed. “What? You know? What do you know?”

Isaac’s gaze slides to Scott, who nods again, encouragingly. “We know about… about you guys,” he says hesitantly, gesturing jerkily towards Derek.

“What about us?” Derek says, his voice guarded.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Lydia mutters.

Scott looks from one to the other. “That you’re dating?” he says, confused. There’s a pause.

“And we think it’s great!” Allison bursts out. Stiles’ eyes widen as he looks at her. “I know I didn’t react that well when I first saw you, Stiles, but I think it’s so great that you’re happy. It makes it so much easier, coming back, to see everyone happy.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t tell us,” Erica says, sounding a little hurt. “You should have known we’d be supportive.”

“It’s not like we haven’t suspected it for weeks,” Scott adds.

Over on the smaller couch, Derek’s eyebrows – always impressive – are contorting in a series of expressions that only Stiles appears to understand. They’re looking at each other, Stiles with his eyes wide and expressive, Derek frowning. Then Derek turns back to the group.

“What makes you… How did you… how did you know?” he asks, with difficulty.

“I heard you at the coffee shop the other day,” Isaac explains.

“You _said_ you thought you smelt him!” Stiles interjects loudly. He raises his eyebrows at Derek, gaze flickering briefly towards Allison, for some unknown reason. He turns to look at her properly. “You… you’re happy, about this?” he asks.

Allison nods. “Honestly, Stiles, I’ve been worried about you,” she says sincerely. “Scott told me some of the things you’ve been through, and I know having me back here must bring up some bad memories.” She smiles at Scott, and Isaac, despite the fact that he’s sitting on her other side, close enough to feel the heat of her skin, feels a frisson of jealousy pulse through him. “I’ve been having a hard time,” she says in a low voice. “It’s nice that you have someone to make you happy.”

Stiles nods, nudges Derek gently, and Derek sighs. He says: “Okay.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Scott asks.

Stiles glances at Derek. “It’s… new,” he says hesitantly. “We didn’t want to… jinx it?” His intonation makes it sound like a question, and Derek sighs again.

“I asked Stiles not to say anything,” he says gruffly. “I haven’t had the best luck with dating in the past.”

There’s a silence, and Stiles reaches out haltingly to touch his arm.

Then Lydia says: “Well, we’re happy for you. Now, I’m going to rewind the last ten minutes, and none of you are going to interrupt it.”

August, weather increasingly warm and balmy, supernatural disasters numbering one. There’s almost something enjoyable about the pack coming together to defeat a wendigo – easy, solitary, and unlinked to any greater threat – and Isaac realises with a rush that he’s missed this style of living. Dreams peaceful, at least for now, and once they’ve dealt with the wendigo, so is Beacon Hills.

Isaac and Allison go shopping for college together, piling a cart high with ordinary student things like packets of cutlery and new sheets. She’s eighteen, but she feels older, and he’ll be twenty-three next month but that’s not how old he feels either. He mentions this to her.

Allison laughs. “I know,” she says. “I missed five years, but it doesn’t feel like it. You know I used to be older than Scott?”

Isaac did know this, pretends he didn’t. “How does it feel?” he asks.

“Weird, I guess,” she says, shrugging. She leans into his shoulder. “I feel like I missed you, even though I don’t remember being away.”

“I missed you too,” Isaac says, touched. She’s so pretty, pretty and warm and human, and he has to resist the temptation to kiss her. He thinks about the kiss with Scott, the kiss neither of them have mentioned since, and wonders if she knows. He doesn’t have the courage to ask her.

Stiles and Derek… are still Stiles and Derek. Somehow Isaac thought things would change between them now that everything is out in the open, but he ought to have known better; he knows Derek, after all. They still sit together, but the distance between them is the same, and so far no one has had the courage to say anything about it.

Until Erica gets bored of it, of course. This time they’re at Scott and Stiles’ apartment, crowded around the miniscule television with Indian food, and she explodes.

“For fuck’s sake, would you just put your arm around him?” she snaps at Derek. Isaac can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief; watching Derek’s hand twitching next to Stiles for the last hour has been excruciating.

Derek, on the other hand, looks completely taken aback. “What?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Put your arm around me, sweetheart,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes exaggeratedly. Scott coughs on a piece of lamb kofta.

“No,” Derek says flatly, although it’s clear he’s responding to the term of endearment rather than the request, as he does shift his arm around Stiles’ shoulders. He looks oddly awkward, but it’s also kind of sweet.

Stiles snuggles into his side, a wide and wicked grin on his face. “I _told_ you we could relax now everyone knows,” he says. There’s a strange, amused undercurrent to his words. “The others don’t mind, baby.” Derek makes a faint, distressed noise. “We can cuddle. It’s okay.”

“Exactly,” Erica says, sounding satisfied. “Watching you guys circle around each other is fucking torture. Please don’t do it.”

For some reason, Derek glances at Allison. She’s smiling, sitting between Scott and Isaac as she always does. Derek sighs, and relaxes a little.

“I want to hear the story,” Lydia says suddenly. “You and Derek, Stiles. How did you start?”

“Wh-what?” Stiles says, looking uncomfortably.

“It’s alright, you can tell us,” Lydia says, eyes glittering. “How did you go from friends to boyfriends?”

Stiles looks around the little group. “Um,” he says. He looks up at Derek; Derek’s face is impassive. “I don’t know, really… I guess we were spending time together?” He swallows, and then his shoulders drop, and he looks up with a determined expression. “I always kind of had a thing for him,” he says. His heartbeat is steady. “Ever since high school, you know? But I never thought he would look at me that way.”

“Neither did I,” Derek says, deadpan, and there’s a brief silence before Isaac starts laughing. He forgets, sometimes, that Derek can be funny.

Stiles elbows him in the ribs. “Shut up, you liked me too,” he says. “Way before you told me you did.”

“When?” Lydia presses. “When did you start liking Stiles, Derek?”

Derek’s cheeks are a little pink, but his voice is perfectly steady when he answers. “That night in the pool, when Stiles saved me from Jackson.”

“You did?” Stiles says, sounding surprised and pleased. “Seriously?”

“Stiles,” Derek says, flush deepening, and Stiles looks away quickly.

“So how long ago did you, like… figure it out?” Scott asks. “I mean, I wondered, but I never knew for sure.”

Stiles scratches his chin. “Six weeks ago,” he says airily. “I was at the loft, and Peter was out for once—”

“Thank _God_ ,” Derek mutters.

“—and Derek made spaghetti,” Stiles continues, as if Derek hadn’t spoken. He pauses. “It was so totally gross.”

“Shut up,” Derek says.

“Aw, baby, it’s okay,” Stiles coos. “Everyone knows you can’t cook.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Derek growls.

Stiles just laughs. “It was so sweet, though,” he says. “He tried, like, really hard. We were watching _Firefly_ after, and he just looked so fucking gorgeous, you know, all stubbly and tired and with bolognaise sauce on his shirt—”

“There was _not_!” Derek says indignantly.

“—and I just, like, really wanted to kiss him,” Stiles finishes. He hesitates, swallows. “So I did,” he says, voice oddly flat.

Derek is frowning at him. “That was…” he says, and then stops.

Lydia turns her searching gaze on him. “Were you surprised, Derek?” she asks.

“Yes,” Derek says, without looking away from Stiles. His heart, Isaac is surprised to hear, is beating unnaturally fast. “I thought – I know you, Stiles, I know you so well—” He stops, abruptly, his words hanging in the air.

Stiles’ heart is beating too. Their faces are so close together that Isaac is sure they’re going to kiss, Derek’s mouth just inches away from Stiles’, but they don’t. They just hover, Derek’s eyes dropping to Stiles’ lips, and after a moment Scott clears his throat and changes the subject. There’s a faint scent of something – disappointment, maybe? – hanging in the air around the small couch, although Derek has always said that werewolves can’t actually smell emotions, so maybe Isaac’s imagining it.

Isaac hangs around after everyone goes home that night, because Allison has fallen asleep on the couch and she looks so soft and relaxed that he doesn’t want to wake her up to give her a ride home. He and Scott sit together on the other couch and watch her, protective.

“It’s so amazing that she’s back,” Scott says softly. He glances swiftly at Isaac. “She’s doing so well.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says, although he’s suddenly finding that he doesn’t want to talk about Allison. He wants Scott to kiss him again, wants to feel his body hot and heavy on top of him, wants the pressure of mouths and hands. He hasn’t been alone with Scott like this since the last time they kissed, and the fact that Allison is in the room makes it all the more alluring.

Scott is watching him. “Are you alright, Isaac?” he asks, voice so open and unsuspecting that Isaac immediately feels guilty for his fantasies.

“Yes,” he says, although he can’t stop his eyes from flicking down to Scott’s mouth, and this time, he’s certain Scott sees.

There’s a moment when he’s not sure what Scott will do, if he’s repulsed or excited, and then the next moment Scott presses his lips to the very corner of Isaac’s mouth. There’s something very intimate and thrilling about the unusual kiss, and Isaac closes his eyes, leaning into it.

“Isaac,” Scott murmurs, “Isaac, Isaac, Isaac…”

“I want—” Isaac gasps, and then he reaches up blindly, takes Scott’s face in his hands, kisses him hot and wet and sharp. Scott’s body is warm, enveloping him, and the kiss turns deep and filthy. Isaac feels like jelly under the heat of Scott’s hands, runs his fingers down the smoothness of Scott’s face, scrapes his nails into Scott’s hair.

Scott groans, kisses his mouth, his jaw, the side of his neck, and Allison wakes up.

They both hear it, hear her sighing and stretching, and Isaac freezes in Scott’s arms, turns his face away. He wants to go on kissing Scott, but Allison—

“Wow,” she says softly, her tone almost reverent. Then: “Don’t stop.”

Scott moans, and Isaac shudders at the sound, the feeling reverberating through his body. He presses against Scott, kisses him again, manoeuvering them both so that he’s half on top of Scott. Scott tastes like coffee and Indian food, and a little – a very little – like blood, dark and delicious and wrong all at the same time. As Isaac kisses him, his fingers tangling in Scott’s hair, he feels the cool slide of Allison’s hand on his arm, making every hair stand on end.

“Allison,” he growls into Scott’s mouth, and Scott gasps heavily. It’s just a hand, just her soft pale hand, and Scott is still wearing his shirt and so is he, but it’s the most erotic thing he’s ever felt in his life.

Part of Isaac wants to rip Scott’s shirt off his chest, wants to turn his head and kiss Allison too, pull her on top of the pair of them, wants to be naked and hot and let everything else fall away. There’s another part, though, that’s fucking terrified of everything that’s happening right now; he’s never felt this way before, never had his heart beating this fast, the blood pulsing through his body this hard, never been in love with a boy or in love with more than one person at a time.

It’s that part of him that has him easing off, limbs trembling as he pulls away from Scott. Allison’s hand doesn’t leave his arm, for which he’s grateful; it’s grounding, a comfort.

Scott pushes himself up on his elbows, reaches out with one hand to push a sweaty strand of hair out of Isaac’s eyes. “You okay?” he asks, his voice rough.

“I don’t—” Isaac says, panting. “Yes?”

Allison leans forward, presses her lips to his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she says, which is ridiculous, because she _died_ , she shouldn’t be comforting him—

He sits back, Scott sitting up too, and why, why— “Why are you both fine?” he bursts out. “This is… this isn’t…”

“Hey, hey, Isaac,” Scott says, and he touches Isaac’s arm. He glances at Allison.

She steps in seamlessly. “You know I love Scott,” she says gently. “And you know I care about you too. I spent so long feeling crappy about that, Isaac, but then I died, and I guess life feels a little short to feel bad about loving people, you know?”

It’s clumsy, and Isaac almost loses his balance, but he kisses her then. He can’t not, not when she’s looking at him like that and he’s pretty sure she just told him she loves him. His heart feels so full that it’s like it’s about to burst out of his chest, and her lips are soft in a way that Scott’s aren’t, yielding and gentle against his. She reaches up to touch his neck as she kisses him, her long hair falling against his face, and Scott is still warm and solid underneath him on the couch, and Isaac decides not to overthink this any more.

“Okay,” he says, when the kiss ends, and Allison is giving him that stunning smile that he fell for in the first place. He’s smiling, the expression almost unfamiliar on his face. He looks at Scott, who’s grinning. “Okay.”

He can’t help but carry on the conversation when he’s alone with Allison the next day, though. They didn’t do anything else after that the night before, just curled up on the couch together, chatting lazily while Scott ran his fingers through Isaac’s hair and Isaac stroked Allison’s leg, but he still hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

“Is this normal?” he asks. “Do people do this?” Scott is at work, so Isaac and Allison have come out to the coffee shop, sharing a brownie and sipping at cappuccinos out in the summer heat.

Allison shrugs. “We’re not the first three people in the history of the universe to want to be with each other, Isaac,” she says, sounding so matter-of-fact and so _Allison_ that Isaac lets out a startled laugh. She leans forward conspiratorially. “Anyway, you guys are werewolves and I came back from the dead a few weeks ago, so I’m pretty sure normal went out the window a while back.”

“But,” Isaac says, his collar suddenly feeling a little too tight, “Scott has a _penis_.”

She bursts out laughing. “So do you,” she points out, and Isaac laughs too, albeit a little unwillingly.

“I never thought – I mean, I’m straight,” he says. Allison is still giggling. “I never…” He swallows. “I mean, how do you do it?”

“Do what?”

Isaac looks around. There’s nobody nearby, but you never know when somebody with supernatural hearing might be within earshot. “Sex,” he says awkwardly. “With, like, a guy.”

This time, she laughs for so long that Isaac is worried she might actually choke. It’s nice, really, to see her so amused, so unaffectedly happy, and he smiles in spite of himself. Allison pats his arm. “I’ll talk you through it,” she says, and kisses his cheek.

“Woohoo, did we interrupt a _date_?” Stiles’ voice is loud and mocking, and Isaac pulls back from Allison irritably. He’s with Derek.

“Did _we_?” he asks pointedly, and Stiles flushes.

Allison gestures generously towards the other side of the table, and Stiles and Derek sit. Derek looks just a little pink, putting down a large plastic bag from The Gap under the table. He says: “Where’s Scott?”

“Working,” Isaac says.

Stiles nudges Derek. “See? Some people…”

“Have jobs, yes,” Derek says in a droll sort of voice. “Stiles, we’ve been through this—”

“—yes, but you don’t listen—”

“—I told you already that—”

“—but Der, that doesn’t make any _sense_ , if you would just—”

“—Stiles, I’ve said no to that—”

“Whoa,” Isaac says, and the seemingly telepathic conversation comes to a halt. Stiles looks over at him.

“What?”

Allison is frowning. “What was that about?” she asks bluntly. Isaac has to resist tucking the long strands of her hair behind her ear, the sunlight gleaming on her face.

Derek sighs, looking put-upon. “Stiles thinks I should get a job,” he says.

Isaac blinks at him. “You don’t have a job?”

“I have a job,” Derek says, but he sounds resigned, and doesn’t look at all surprised when Stiles interrupts him.

“Working, like, three construction jobs a year is not a job, Derek,” he says loudly. “And,” he adds, holding up a finger as Derek opens his mouth to respond, “neither is fixing cars once in a while. You need a _proper_ job.”

“Why?” Derek says sulkily.

Stiles sighs with the air of someone repeating himself for the thousandth time. Knowing Stiles as Isaac does, even that is probably a low estimate. “Because your insurance payouts won’t last forever? And we’re all working, or we will be soon—” this with a brief smile at Isaac “—and you need to have other people to hang out with.”

“Derek doesn’t like people, though,” Isaac says a little stupidly, and Derek looks offended.

“I like people,” he says. There’s a pause, during which both Stiles and Isaac attempt valiantly to keep a straight face. Derek huffs, and turns to Isaac. “Anyway, what Stiles _isn’t_ telling you is that he has an agenda.”

“You should work with my dad,” Stiles replies, clearly not even attempting to deny it. “You’d be awesome at it, and he totally wants you to.”

“ _Stiles_ —” Derek begins, obviously gearing up for an argument, but Allison waves a hand.

“Okay, enough,” she says. “Kiss and make up, guys, this is getting old.” She flashes a devious sort of smile at them. “I just came back from the dead, so you have to do what I say.”

Derek pouts, which is so fucking hilarious that Isaac can’t hide his snigger. “I’m not kissing _him_ ,” he says sullenly.

“Boo, don’t be like that,” Stiles coos tauntingly, and Derek’s eyes narrow.

“Fuck it,” he says abruptly, turning to Stiles. For a moment, they just look at each other, and it’s kind of like the way Isaac looks at Scott, looks at Allison, and the smile begins to fade from Stiles’ face.

Derek, on the other hand, grins wickedly. He leans forward, nose nudging Stiles’ cheek, and just as Stiles is opening his mouth to say something – because Stiles is _always_ opening his mouth to say something – he closes that last little piece of distance between them, letting his lips fall onto Stiles’.

There’s something very tender about the kiss, about the way Derek’s hand slides so softly up Stiles’ cheek, the way Stiles’ eyes flutter closed, and Isaac feels a smile creep across his face in spite of himself. Stiles makes a tiny, surprised sound in the back of his throat, and Derek shuts his eyes. They look gentle and soft, like they’re kissing for the very first time, and Isaac is reminded of that first kiss with Scott. He glances at Allison; she looks just as transfixed by them as he is.

Isaac touches her shoulder. He wants to kiss her, too, but it’s too cliche with Derek and Stiles still kissing across the table from them, so he settles for taking her hand. Her long, pale fingers interlock firmly with his.

Stiles and Derek break apart. Stiles is very flushed, and Derek’s face is soft and open, like he’s totally undone. Stiles says: “Derek—”

“Yeah,” Derek says gruffly, like it’s an answer to something, and then they don’t say anything else at all.


	4. Chapter 4

August, weather stiflingly hot. Dreams twisted, confused, full of Scott and Allison, Allison and Scott, sometimes holding his hands and sometimes just holding each other, looking over to him somewhat pityingly. Isaac dismisses these dreams, because they aren’t nightmares, and he doesn’t need to be afraid of them.

He, Allison and Scott go to the movies, and Isaac expects Allison to sit in the middle but she doesn’t; instead it’s him, with one of them on each side, and he feels warm and wanted. Allison holds his hand, and Scott sits comfortably close. He doesn’t really register what the movie is about, just concentrates on the heat of Allison’s skin, and resists the urge to rest his head on Scott’s shoulder. The movie theatre isn’t particularly crowded, but he does find himself wondering what the other patrons think of their little group, and then decides he doesn’t care.

He hangs out with Scott and Stiles at their apartment, because the little room he’s renting is stifling and unpleasant, and they play video games and eat pizza.

“You need to get your own place,” Stiles comments, slurping loudly at his soda. “You still have the money from your dad’s house, right?”

Scott nudges Stiles, but Isaac kind of likes the way that Stiles doesn’t tiptoe around difficult topics. “Yeah,” he says. He swallows. “I guess… Buying somewhere would be…”

“Like putting down roots?” Stiles says shrewdly. Scott darts Isaac a look.

Isaac nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, you should,” Scott says earnestly. He puts down his slice of pizza. “I mean, this is your home, Isaac. This is your pack.”

Stiles makes a noise in the back of his throat. “No offence, Scotty, but you’re the boyfriend. You can’t be objective about this. Isaac should stay because _he_ wants to, not because you do.”

Scott nods a little sadly, but Isaac is arrested by Stiles’ word choice. He says, quietly: “Boyfriend.” It’s not a question.

Stiles glances at Scott. “Well… yeah? Right?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, and Isaac grins.

“You’d stay if Derek asked you to,” he points out, and somehow his voice feels more normal than it has in months, robust and strong.

Stiles shrugs, looking oddly forlorn. “Yeah, of course,” he says dejectedly. Scott reaches out, touches his arm.

“Stiles, what—”

“I just like him so much!” Stiles bursts out, sending his soda cup flying off the edge of the couch. Fortunately, there’s only ice left in it, spilling out across the floor. “Oh, man, it was so _easy_ to ignore before, Scotty, but now—”

Isaac frowns at him; he’s clearly missing something. Stiles’ heartbeat is all over the place. “Ignore… the fact that you like him?”

Stiles’ heartbeat stutters. “N-no,” he says. “I mean.” He sighs. “I don’t think he likes me as much as I like him.”

There’s a silence while Isaac and Scott process this. On the screen in front of them, video game characters flicker, waiting. Scott says: “Stiles, I think you’re wrong about that.”

There’s something a little child-like about Stiles’ face, open and raw, with sad eyes that Isaac doesn’t like the look of. He’s still fizzing inside from Scott calling him his boyfriend – his _boyfriend_ – and he wants Stiles to feel that happy, because it’s so clear. Of course Derek is crazy about Stiles.

“You do everything together,” he points out.

“That’s because I won’t leave him alone,” Stiles says.

Isaac snorts. “Derek wouldn’t stick around you if he didn’t want to,” he says. “Peter doesn’t leave him alone either, and they’re not exactly buddies.”

“You should hear his heartbeat every time you’re there,” Scott adds encouragingly. “It always goes faster.”

Stiles looks up. “It does?” he says hopefully.

Isaac nods. “Yeah,” he says. He picks up a couple of curly fries, tosses them into his mouth. He’s suddenly feeling remarkably confident, in a way he hasn’t since he was a teenager. “He said yes when you asked him out, right? So don’t overthink it.”

For some reason, this doesn’t have the effect Isaac was hoping for; Stiles’ face inexplicably falls. “I didn’t give him much of a choice,” he mutters.

“There’s always a choice,” Scott says, looking at Isaac. He’s looking particularly attractive, brown eyes warm and bright. Stiles hums, and they go back to playing video games.

Allison and Scott spend an evening together without Isaac, which feels weird in some ways, not in others. He thinks he should be jealous, is jealous, but not because he doesn’t want them together, just because he wishes he were there too. There’s a little part of him that kind of enjoys the thought of them together, imagines them kissing, imagines watching – and then he shuts that thought down, because it feels invasive and pervy even though he’s pretty sure neither of them would mind.

He goes to hang out with Derek, Erica and Boyd instead, because Stiles is having dinner with his dad and Isaac has spent plenty of time with Stiles already. Erica is curled up in the armchair in Derek’s loft while Boyd makes pasta, since apparently none of them really know how to cook, and Isaac makes a mental note to be in charge of food next time he does anything social; he’s practically been living off takeout and easy food recently.

“So have you found anywhere yet?” Erica asks. “To live?”

Isaac sighs. “Stiles told you.”

“He told Derek, actually,” Erica says, nodding towards Derek, who flushes a little from his position on the couch. She gives a glittering, slightly frightening smile, complete with bright red lipstick. “But Derek doesn’t have any secrets from me.”

“Shut up,” Derek says reflexively.

Isaac sighs. “I’ve been looking,” he confesses. “I don’t know, I don’t like any of the apartments I’ve seen. I want somewhere kind of like Scott’s place, I guess.”

Erica grins, and Isaac wishes he hadn’t said it. “So move into Scott’s place.”

Boyd, coming into the living room with a couple of bowls of pasta in his hands, rolls his eyes. Isaac doesn’t even bother responding to that; Scott may be his _boyfriend_ – and yes, saying that is still as delightfully exciting as it was the first time – and they may have kissed a few more times, gently, chastely, sometimes with Allison there and sometimes not, but they haven’t really talked about it. And as much as the idea of being with Scott 24/7 is kind of enticing, it also scares the crap out of him.

“Would you ever move in with Stiles?” he asks Derek instead.

Derek responds somewhat viscerally, swallowing audibly and looking up in some surprise. “What?” he says, too fast. His heart is doing something odd, pumping double-time in his chest. Isaac frowns.

“Sounds like you’ve thought about it,” Erica says wickedly. “Imagine that, Der. You could kick us out—”

“We’ve been meaning to get our own place,” Boyd adds in his calm, deep voice.

“—maybe even kick _Peter_ out, have Stiles all to yourself,” she finishes.

Derek twitches. “Shut up.”

“No,” Isaac says, surprised. “We’re your friends, Derek. You can talk to us about this.”

Derek is actually sweating. “Like you do?” he asks Isaac pointedly.

“He does, actually,” Erica says a little icily. “Don’t be a dick, Derek.” She takes one of the bowls Boyd is holding out to her, turning her attention to her pasta. They eat, and it feels a little awkward even though Erica is talking deliberately to try and make it not be.

Derek looks uncomfortable, winding spaghetti around his fork with a pink flush, and when no one is looking at him he mutters: “I don’t even _like_ Stiles,” but his heart is stuttering like crazy, so it’s pretty clear that Isaac doesn’t need to put too much stock in that.

Isaac goes over to Scott’s place that weekend, the weather so hot that he’s down to shorts and a tank top. His dreams have been less unpleasant since Scott made it clear that they’re _boyfriends_ , and quite honestly, some of them have had him waking in quite a different kind of sweat.

Allison is over too, of course, and they talk idly about going out for a walk, but the sun is beating so hard on the pavements outside that in the end they just stay in the air-conditioned apartment. Allison is looking beautiful in a white lacy blouse and denim shorts, her bare feet draped over the end of the couch and her head in Isaac’s lap, while Scott sits opposite in the chair in a black tank top that shows off his muscular arms in a way that Isaac can’t quite keep his eyes away from.

It’s kind of weird, to be honest, because he’s never so much as looked at another guy that way; it’s always been girls, never even questioned it before, and yet, now… Now, Scott.

Allison laughs when he hesitantly voices some of these thoughts – and it’s nice, really, to feel comfortable enough to voice them – and he’s reminded of their conversation at the coffee shop. She says, fondly: “If it was going to be anyone, it would be Scott, right?”

Scott laughs, and Isaac smiles. “It’s just not fair,” he grumbles, “when I keep dreaming about—” He stops, abruptly.

Allison sits up a little, a teasing smile on her face. “Dreaming about?” she asks.

Isaac shrugs, embarrassed.

“Do you still get nightmares?” Scott asks hesitantly, which isn’t the question Isaac had been expecting, but it’s still easier than explaining the dreams he’d been thinking of. Allison slides her hand absently down his arm, the light touch making all the hairs stand on end.

He shrugs again. “Sometimes,” he says. He can’t actually remember telling Scott about the nightmares, but it figures that he would know. “They’re getting better.”

“Good,” Allison says decisively. She leans up, kisses his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “I’m glad.”

“Is this normal for you guys?” Isaac asks. He looks between Allison and Scott, one to the other. “Did you know this would happen?”

It’s Scott who answers, Allison by now almost curled in Isaac’s lap, her hair soft against his face. “Hoped, maybe,” he says. He glances at Allison. “I’m not… I haven’t done this before, either.”

Allison kisses him under his chin, the soft skin of his neck. “It just feels right,” she says, and it does, so Isaac kisses her properly, kisses her velvet mouth, lets his tongue slide against hers. His hand is in her hair, one arm curved around her waist, and she feels slight and gentle against him.

It’s not enough, though – he wants Scott, so he reaches out blindly behind him, and feels Scott’s fingers interlocking with his own. Scott presses forward so that Isaac can feel his body up against his back, touches Isaac’s neck, rests his chin on Isaac’s shoulder. Isaac breaks away from the fervent breathless kisses long enough to gasp out: “This – I dream about this, sometimes—”

“Me too,” Scott says, sounding wrecked and raw, and then he lunges forward and kisses Allison’s neck, hand sliding down Isaac’s chest, across his stomach, making Isaac’s stomach flip over, and then – then, he touches Isaac’s cock through his pants.

Isaac groans, loudly, and Scott draws back. “Is that okay?” he asks, concern in his eyes, and Isaac can’t stand it, is totally overwhelmed by it, needs it – so he grabs Scott’s hand and puts it back there, feeling every nerve in his body singing as Scott’s fingers clumsily graze his crotch.

“Yes,” he pants, partly in belated answer to Scott’s question and partly just because he feels it. “Yes, please—”

Scott finds a little more purchase on Isaac’s cock, rubs it with a little more purpose, and Isaac shudders and moans under his touch. Allison is still half on his lap, one arm around each of their necks, and Isaac – daringly – lets his fingers brush down the line of her collarbone, against her breasts. She lets out a little, breathy cry.

“Isaac,” she gasps. “Isaac, Isaac—”

He wants to slip his hand into the waistband of her shorts, but he’s not sure he really has the courage to do it. She’s pressing against him, though, her hips thrusting gently on his lap, so he slides a hand along the inside of her thigh, over her shorts, rubbing her through them. She closes her eyes and pushes against him a little more insistently. She’s beautiful like this, head tipped back, the long silky line of her throat bared for him, her hair cascading over her shoulders and the tops of her arms. She looks lost in the moment, and it’s all for him – for him, and for Scott. He darts forwards, kisses her shoulder.

Scott nuzzles his neck, and suddenly Isaac really, really wants to see his cock. He’s nervous about it; he’s never really seen another guy’s cock, not if you don’t count the showers after a lacrosse game, and this is somewhat different from that. But he wants it. He can _feel_ it, coursing through his blood, just how much he wants it.

“Please,” he says, a little pitifully, and Scott stills, looking questioningly at him. Isaac gestures helplessly at him. “I want – please. Show me. I want to see.”

Allison stifles a giggle into his chest, and Scott looks surprised, but pleased as well, a happy smile spreading across his face. He glances down at his own crotch. “Yeah? You – really?”

Isaac nods fervently. “Yes. Please.”

He doesn’t quite know what he’s expecting. Maybe that it’ll be totally off-putting, the sight of another guy’s cock, so that he’ll be just faintly repulsed by it. If anyone were to ask him, that’s probably what he’d say. He’s never fantasised about a cock, never thought about licking one or sucking one or – he swallows, shivering – having one inside him. He’s never touched one other than his own, never wanted to either. But now – now, he wants to see Scott’s, isn’t really sure why. Wants to know, maybe, how it’ll make him feel.

Scott’s hands are shaky as he tugs down the zipper of his pants, his breath coming in short hard bursts. Allison snuggles into Isaac’s side, one hand sliding up the inside of his tank top, watching Scott’s movements with dark entranced eyes. Her other hand is between her own legs, not really doing anything, just brushing past the denim of her shorts.

Slowly, Scott pushes his boxers past his hips, reaches inside them. His cock is heavy and hard, large in his hand, and he draws it out carefully. Hesitantly, he looks up, meeting Isaac’s eyes. There’s a small, slightly anxious smile on his face, and with an odd sort of jolt Isaac realises that Scott is _nervous_.

This is a big deal for Scott too. Maybe not for the same reasons as Isaac, but it’s not meaningless. Somehow, that gives him confidence.

He lets his eyes be drawn back down to Scott’s cock. It’s not a turn-off. It’s actually kind of a turn- _on_ , and Isaac finds that he’s breathing rather harder than he had been before. Without thinking about it, he reaches out, strokes a finger down its length, and Scott gasps loudly.

“You still need me to talk you through it?” Allison asks teasingly, although he knows she will if he asks. He bends to kiss her cheek, a swift motion that’s over before it’s really begun, and then he turns his attention back to Scott’s cock.

“No,” he says. This time, he wraps his whole hand around it. “I think I got it.”

Making Scott come is one of the most powerful experiences Isaac’s ever had, and that’s including defeating all the numerous supernatural creatures the pack has faced. Allison whispers encouraging things as he does it, letting her words hang soft and heavy in the air, so that every groan Scott makes feels that much more delicious. Scott’s not particularly loud, but he tosses his head back as Isaac flicks his wrist, lets his lips part, a rumble of sound coming out of his mouth.

For Isaac, he can feel himself getting harder. Watching Scott unravel, watching him lose control, watching his nails start to lengthen and the hair begin to creep out as the shift takes over him, is fucking addictive. He almost doesn’t _want_ Scott to come, doesn’t want it to end, wants to take him right to the edge and hold him there so he can taste the beauty in Scott’s shaking arms and closed eyes, watch him fall apart at the touch of Isaac’s hand. But he can’t, and with a wordless cry, head tipping forward, Scott spills over Isaac’s fingers, down his own stomach, panting heavily as his body twitches.

There’s a silence. “Wow,” Allison breathes. She looks wild and breathless, her hair tangled and a thin sheen of sweat on her face. “ _Wow_.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says shakily, and Scott kisses him, open-mouthed and hard and sloppy.

Allison gets Scott a damp cloth, and he cleans up. He looks at Isaac, gestures towards his shorts. “Do you want—?”

“No,” Isaac says quickly. He’s not sure he feels ready to be looked at, yet. He glances at Allison, but her beatific smile tells him she doesn’t need any attention; she took care of herself while Isaac was taking care of Scott. He says, jerkily: “This is going to be good.”

“I hope so,” Scott says, smiling, and Allison cuddles into him again.

Stiles comes home when they’ve watched three and a half episodes of _Brooklyn 99_. They’ve had the windows open and a candle burning, so the scent of sex will only be noticeable to a werewolf nose; Isaac kind of likes the idea of Scott being able to smell it, being at home and remembering what happened here.

Stiles, on the other hand, smells like dejection and sadness. He throws himself straight into an armchair, barely batting an eyelid at the three of them curled up on the couch together; Isaac forces himself to smooth out the sudden tension in his shoulders. He’s not sure why he keeps waiting for someone to pass judgement on them.

“Well, your advice _sucked_ ,” Stiles says without preamble. Isaac blinks at him.

“What advice?” he says, nonplussed.

Stiles groans, throwing his hands up into the air. “Oh, yeah, he totally likes you, Stiles! His heart always beats faster when you’re around, Stiles! Well, dude, I hate to tell you this, but you were wrong. Both of you,” he adds, pointing at Scott.

“He didn’t break up with you?” Scott says, aghast.

Allison lets out a small cry. “Oh, _no_ ,” she says.

Stiles bites his lip. “I don’t know,” he says in a small voice. “I… told him how I feel, I guess.”

“What did you tell him?” Scott asks, leaning forward. Isaac pauses _Brooklyn 99_.

“That I love him,” Stiles says miserably. “He freaked out, told me ‘some things aren’t a joke, Stiles’, and just left.” He slumps in the chair. “We were in the middle of the freaking diner!”

Isaac frowns. “Why would he think you were joking?”

Stiles shrugs. “I guess I’m just a joke to him,” he says. “Just, like, a way to pass the time, or whatever. I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

They play the TV again, Jake wooing Amy on-screen, and Stiles lasts until the end of the episode before he starts tossing restlessly in his seat. Scott slides down so that he’s relaxed into Isaac’s arms, and his body feels solid and comfortable. Allison nestles into his other side, and he’s not sure when he’s felt so happy. The credits rolls, and Scott looks across at Stiles and his creased worried face.

“Stiles,” he says. “Talk to us.”

“I’m in love with him, Scotty!” Stiles bursts out. “You don’t even know, he’s so good – he cares about people so much, and he puts up with _me_ , he likes me for who _I_ am, you know, even though I’m just this shitty little kid with ADHD who talks too much, and I’m human, but he spends time with me and listens to me and I just – he makes me feel special, you know? And I thought – I guess I thought – I thought, maybe this can be real, and not just some pity thing. Maybe this could work.” He stops, swallows. “Because honestly, I think it could work. I think _we_ work. But he—”

Scott looks somewhat alarmed. “Stiles—” he starts.

Isaac, who knows Derek better than Scott does, interrupts. “Have you told him that, Stiles?” he asks.

Stiles looks at him. “No,” he says. He sighs. “I don’t think he’ll believe me.”

“You should,” Isaac says, and makes a mental note to corner Derek as soon as he can.

The opportunity arises the next afternoon, because Scott’s taking Allison for a walk through the preserve, and Stiles is hanging out with Lydia, and Erica and Boyd are having lunch with her dad, so Isaac takes himself over to the loft. Weather hot, as always, so that Isaac is longing for the cool temperatures of Europe, but then his dreams are even hotter and completely delicious, so he thinks it’s a trade he’s willing to make.

Derek is at home, sitting on his laptop on the couch. He jumps when Isaac walks in, shuts the laptop too quickly. It’s not like him not to have noticed someone coming.

He relaxes when he sees it’s Isaac. “Isaac,” he growls.

“What the hell is going on with you and Stiles?” Isaac says without an intro. Derek blinks at him, pushes the laptop away from himself a little. Isaac strides over and sits opposite him on the couch. “He’s really upset, and honestly, Derek? It’s killing my buzz.”

Derek glances at him, amused. “Your buzz?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says, leaning back against the couch cushions. “He came home way too early yesterday because apparently his boyfriend freaked out when he told him he loved him. There’s three of us, Derek, these things take longer than usual.” He smiles, feeling smug and just a little daring. Everyone knows, of course, about Scott, Allison and him, but that’s the first time he’s really acknowledged it out loud, referenced it so casually.

“Sorry,” Derek says. He sounds dejected, and Isaac frowns, looking at him properly.

“Derek, what’s the problem?” he asks. “You like Stiles, right?”

Derek sighs. “Of course I like Stiles,” he says. “He’s…”

“What?” Isaac says. “Why do you like him?”

“Because he makes me laugh,” Derek says without missing a beat, like he’s been waiting to say it for weeks. “He’s brilliant, and so clever, and when he’s in the room he’s like a fucking magnet. I… Yeah. I love him.” He sighs, deeply.

Now Isaac is completely lost. “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s just a joke to him!” Derek says, his voice rising. “He never… he doesn’t feel… Not—”

“Derek,” Isaac says seriously. “He is 100% in love with you. He told me so yesterday. He was really upset.” Derek’s eyes are getting wider as he speaks, like Isaac is somehow telling him something completely unexpected. “Derek, if you don’t see that, you’re a fucking moron!”

There’s a silence. Derek is looking unusually young, his face open, and just a little lost. He bites his lip. “Oh,” he says quietly. Then: “Isaac, I have to go—” He stops, sniffs the air delicately, and a small smile appears on his face.

Isaac can scent him too; Stiles is _here_ , getting out of the Jeep outside. He smells like anxiety and determination, although if he were to say that out loud Derek would roll his eyes at him. However, Derek doesn’t look in any fit state to think about Isaac; he’s blushing, warm and clearly happy, and he rises slowly off the couch as Stiles dashes up the stairs.

“Derek!” Stiles is yelling, pushing the large sliding door open. “Derek!”

“He forgets that I can hear him from outside,” Derek says to Isaac, an unmistakable note of fondness in his voice. The smile is still on his face, soft and a little amused. Stiles, who misses all of this, comes marching across the loft.

He barely registers Isaac’s presence. “Derek, you’re a douchebag,” he says smartly. “You totally left me hanging last night, and you’re a fucking idiot, because I _was not_ joking, and you should have figured that out with all your wolfy senses, and—”

Derek kisses him, and Isaac decides it’s time to leave.


	5. Chapter 5

June, weather cool. Beacon Hills is beautiful, sunlight glittering across the tops of the trees, and Isaac glances at Allison briefly as she gazes out the window, smiling. It’s been a long time since he felt the need to take stock of his dreams.

It’s been nearly eight weeks since they’ve been back; Scott, of course, comes to visit them at college pretty much every day that he’s not working, but it’s not the same as being home. Isaac can feel the warm shroud of _pack_ settle around his shoulders the closer he gets. He still feels that nervous twist in his stomach when he thinks about seeing them all – some things never change, and not every wound heals – but it’s tempered by the knowledge that it’s going to be okay. More than okay.

Allison touches his arm. He’s not quite as sensitive to it, not after a year of college together, but it still has the effect of relaxing him. She says: “Happy to be back?”

“Yeah,” he says, with feeling. They’re not living together next year. They thought about it – Isaac is such a frequent visitor in Allison’s dorm room that her roommate started to complain – but in the end it felt wrong without Scott, even though he said he didn’t mind. They talk about him so often, and he comes to see them so regularly, that no one has ever mistaken Isaac and Allison for a couple.

He pulls up outside Derek’s loft. It’s looking a lot nicer these days; Stiles, as it turns out, has an eye for interior design, although he’s pretty damn vocal about the fact that he’s not Derek’s housewife. The whole place looks less neglected, more like a home. The sliding door isn’t a rusty entrance portal anymore; now it looks deliberate, a gleaming copper nod to hipsters everywhere.

Derek, Erica, Boyd and Chris are there, sitting on the couches waiting for them. Erica lets out a cheer when Isaac pushes open the door.

“We thought you’d never get here,” she says, flashing them her wicked smile. She and Boyd moved into their own place three months ago, but as far as Isaac can tell they still spend a solid amount of time at Derek’s loft. Erica, Boyd and Isaac: Derek’s original pack, the one he chose. It may not be quite that way anymore, but old habits die hard, and Isaac wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chris is clinging to Allison, like he can’t quite believe she’s there. It would be a little ridiculous – Chris is almost as frequent a visitor as Scott at college – but Isaac gets it. He lost her once. She died once. It took a lot for Chris to let her go enough to see her off at college, even though she packed her bow and a bunch of hand-crafted silver arrowheads.

He does hug Isaac, after he finally releases Allison. They’re still close, much more so than Chris is with Scott. He knows about what they have, doesn’t mind it, hasn’t complained – but he still prefers Isaac. Which, of course, Isaac rubs in Scott’s face every chance he gets, if only because he knows that more than anything else, Chris is just happy that Allison is.

Scott gets there half an hour later, still in his uniform from work. Isaac feels his stomach do the familiar flip as he scents Scott outside, his heartrate mounting as the footsteps come up the stairs to the loft. Allison can’t smell Scott the way he can, but she grins happily anyway, clearly picking up on Isaac’s sudden attention to the entrance.

Erica rolls her eyes. “You guys are ridiculous,” she says, but Isaac isn’t listening anymore, because Scott is pushing back the door, looking tall and lovely with that gently excited expression in his eyes that Isaac loves.

For a second, he feels the usual anxiety – who will Scott hug first? Who is he most excited to see? – and then he forgets that, flooding forward with Allison into Scott’s arms. He embraces them both, kissing their faces, and Isaac presses his mouth to Scott’s neck and shakes a little and has to try not to cry. Which may be a little pathetic – Erica, from the sound of her half-bored, half-amused sigh, certainly thinks so – but Isaac has missed Scott. As much as he loves being at college with Allison, it feels like there’s a piece of him missing when Scott isn’t there.

The afternoon is pleasant, gentle; Isaac has nowhere to be but here, and he lounges lazily on the long couch with Scott between him and Allison, one hand wound in Scott’s hair, the other on his thigh. Erica got a promotion, so they spend a while talking about that, Boyd looking fondly at her as she speaks, and Isaac wonders idly if they might be getting married sometime in the near future. He and Allison talk about college, and Derek barely says anything at all, sitting in the corner, smiling proudly at his pack.

“Where’s Stiles?” Isaac asks after a couple of hours, and that’s what rouses Derek from his satisfied solitude. He sits forward, eyes alert, actual fucking dimples in his cheeks.

“Working,” he says. “Tough case.” He taps his nose. “I can’t tell you about it, otherwise I’d have to ki—” He cuts himself off, looking down at his clasped hands.

Erica bursts into a peal of laughter. “He keeps doing that,” she says. “That’s such a Stiles-ism.”

That actually explains a lot. Derek keeps in contact with Isaac, more than anyone else in the pack apart from Scott does, and sometimes when they’re on the phone or Skyping he comes out with phrases that Isaac doesn’t quite recognise. Once, he actually used the word _dude_ unironically in a sentence.

When he says this aloud, even Boyd cracks a smile.

“Shut up,” Derek says, cheeks reddening, but he doesn’t seem too annoyed. There’s something very peaceful about Derek these days, something gentle and content that Isaac likes. “You try spending that much time around Stiles and not picking up his vocabulary.”

“Who should spend time with Stiles?” Stiles says, pushing open the heavy door to the loft. He looks tired, heavy circles underneath his eyes, but there’s a familiar smile on his face, and his eyes flicker quickly to Derek before settling on Isaac and Allison. “Hey, guys.”

“Hi, Stiles,” Allison says. He hugs her, and then Isaac, smelling of coffee and paper and – just faintly – of Derek.

Stiles divests himself of his jacket and backpack, coming to perch on the arm of Derek’s chair. “So?” he says expectantly. “Who should spend time with me?”

“Me,” Derek says, catching his arm, and Stiles leans into him. Derek looks so fucking _happy_ , so warm and comfortable in a way Isaac has rarely seen before; the smile on his face is open, unguarded, with none of the wary tension that used to be his trademark. Stiles laughs, nudges Derek with his shoulder, and Derek kisses him briefly.

Isaac glances at Scott, who has had more exposure to Stiles and Derek together. It’s been almost a year – will be a year in just a week, a date that Isaac has emblazoned on his memory because it was the day Allison came back to them – but they still surprise him. And, he supposes, technically for Stiles and Derek it’s been longer than that, since they were dating for six weeks before anyone found out. If anyone had asked him – well, he always would have thought that they’d work as a couple, but he figures they should be more… aggressive. They always fought so much, before; Stiles always ready with a retort, Derek closed off, angry.

They were like that at first, a little. Not so much after they resolved whatever issue it was that had Isaac tiptoeing out of Derek’s loft that time, feeling massively like a third wheel, but before that it was there. Derek’s awkwardness, Stiles’ insecurity. He smelled it on them, although Derek wouldn’t believe him if he said so. But that fight must have been a turning point of sorts, because after that Derek smiled a lot more, and it was rare to see them together without their hands being interlinked, their scents mixed together.

“When is Lydia getting here?” Stiles asks. He glances at Derek, bites his lip. “We have to—”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, and Stiles shuts up.

Allison frowns curiously. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes, she said. What—?”

Stiles coughs, loudly and conspicuously. “Oh man, Ally, have I told you about my case? My dad thinks it might actually be another nogitsune, though I’m pretty sure it’s not actually that bad.” He looks around the room, adding in an explanatory tone: “Derek looked at the body.”

He tells them about the case. Stiles left Quantico just before Isaac came back to town a year ago; he’s been working closely with the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department ever since, discreetly setting up a Supernatural Law Enforcement Division in the area. He segues naturally into talking about it, hands waving in expansive gestures as he gets more and more excited about what he’s saying; apparently, his dad and Jordan Parrish are not the only cops out there to have some awareness of the supernatural. It’s been slow-going, trying to set up a department without anyone knowing why or what it’s for, but he’s confident.

“And once we have Derek on board, we’ll be golden,” he finishes, grinning at Derek. Derek rolls his eyes and pokes him, so that Stiles loses his balance and tumbles onto Derek’s lap.

Isaac already knows most of this, because Derek is so proud of Stiles’ progress with the team that he talks about it almost every time he calls. He’s also confessed, haltingly, that he’s taking his final set of exams to join the Sheriff’s Department next spring. Apparently that was what he’d been looking into, that day he’d pushed his laptop away too quickly.

Lydia arrives then, looking golden and beautiful with dark red lipstick and a purple skirt. She’s cut her hair short, a shoulder-length bob, and it suits her: sleek and mature, just like her. Of all the pack, Lydia is probably the one Isaac knows the least.

She hugs Allison, of course, actually granting her with a smile, and even gives Isaac a quick embrace. They’re all there, all the pack, Erica and Boyd together, Stiles on Derek’s lap, Lydia sat primly in an armchair wearing smart-looking boots, Isaac wrapped up with his two favourite people in the world, even Chris, smiling easily. His pack, his family. A year ago he never could have thought he’d be able to have this. A year ago he was mourning, lost in nightmares with no sense of direction and darkness looming over his head. Now—

Scott is watching him. “Love you,” he says quietly, although of course all the werewolves in the room will be able to hear him. Erica wrinkles her nose at them.

“Love you,” Allison says sleepily, whether in response or simply in addition to Scott unclear. Isaac has a lump in his throat, and he drops his head, kisses Scott’s shoulder.

“Love you too,” he says under his breath, and Scott smiles, nudging him gently.

“We have news,” Stiles announces, and Isaac is broken out of the moment. It’s okay. There will be more.

He turns to look at Stiles and Derek, tangled together in the armchair. Derek’s heart is beating unusually quickly, one hand wrapped around Stiles’ wrist like he’s anxious about something; he’s looking at Stiles, cheeks a little flushed. Stiles, on the hand, smells peaceful, happy, and he smiles back at Derek as though there’s nothing amiss.

“Don’t tell me,” Erica says, leaning her head on Boyd’s shoulder. “You’re pregnant.”

“Funny,” Derek mutters, though he’s blushing just a little more now. Erica laughs, blows him a red-lipped kiss. Boyd presses his mouth to her ear.

Lydia rolls her eyes, and Stiles says: “Anyway. Our news.” He takes a deep, halting breath, looks around the room a little nervously. Then his face splits into an enormous grin. “We’re moving in together!”

“Hey, that’s awesome!” Scott says, and Erica claps a little. A babble of chatter breaks out, even Chris looking as though he might be on the edge of smiling, but Isaac isn’t looking at Chris. He’s looking at Derek.

Derek’s eyes are on Stiles. He’s breathing a little faster than he should be, his heart pounding, and he looks… anxious. Worried. But at the same time, he reaches up to touch Stiles’ cheek, so whatever the problem is, it’s not their relationship.

Stiles seems to be just as aware of Derek’s nervousness as Isaac is. He flashes him a brief smile and winks, which somehow works; Derek cracks a smile. Stiles says: “Sorry, Scotty, for leaving the apartment of awesome.”

“That’s okay,” Scott says, and his arm brushes just slightly too deliberately against Isaac’s. Isaac still hasn’t bought a place, though he’s thought about it, has the money. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t pull away either.

“Derek,” Boyd says, tipping his head to one side. Derek glances at him. Boyd frowns. “You okay?”

Derek opens his mouth. Closes it again. It’s not just Isaac looking curiously at him this time; he smells of hot anxious energy, and his heart is still beating too fast. He says, haltingly: “Yes,” and looks at Stiles.

Stiles laughs. “Derek freaked out when I asked him,” he says easily, only the tiniest hint of sadness in his tone. Derek nudges him.

“I didn’t freak out,” he says. “I just…” There’s a pregnant pause, and his shoulders slump. “Freaked out,” he admits.

Everyone laughs. “Stiles-ism!” Erica crows.

Derek looks fondly at Stiles. “Every time I’ve fallen for someone before, people have died,” he says. His words are grave, but there’s a smile on his face; it brings a lump to Isaac’s throat, hearing him speak so openly about something so painful. “I was scared, I guess.” He grins. “Not any more.”

“Nope,” Stiles says smugly. “Now you’re just wildly excited.” Derek rolls his eyes, and Stiles laughs. “Well, after you had that major strop,” he amends.

“I did not—” Derek protests, but even Boyd is looking sceptical. He stops talking, shakes his head, and then shrugs.

Stiles looks around at them. He still looks tired, but his hands are animated, confident. “The only fight we’ve ever had,” he says proudly. Derek laughs and flicks his ear. “One fight in ten months. I think that’s pretty awesome, right? Lydia?”

Lydia looks up, eyes wide. “Yes, Stiles?” she says crisply.

“Say that Derek and me are awesome,” Stiles says.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re awesome, Stiles,” she recites, parrot-like.

Isaac frowns. “Except for that fight you had right at the beginning,” he points out. “When I was there?”

“Oh, yeah!” Scott says. “Yeah, when you were all insecure.” He frowns. “Hang on. That was a year ago, right? So, like, two fights in a year?”

Erica laughs. “Doesn’t sound as good.”

Isaac is watching Derek and Stiles. For some reason, there’s the faint colour of – guilt? Embarrassment? – tainting their entwined scents, and Stiles is looking distinctly shifty. He glances at Derek, whose cheeks are pink, and gnaws on his lower lip.

Scott has noticed it too. His hand, which had been gently stroking Isaac’s arm, halts in its tracks. “Stiles?” he says.

“Oh, _honestly_ ,” Lydia says, sounding bored. There’s a silence.

Then Derek says, slowly: “Stiles and I have only been dating for ten months.”

“Guess it’s time you all knew,” Stiles adds, fidgeting a little.

“I already knew,” Lydia says. She’s on her phone, barely looks up. “For the record.”

Scott looks adorably confused, his forehead crinkling. “I don’t get it,” he says, and Isaac has a quick hot urge to kiss him. “Knew what?”

Stiles shuffles his feet, glances at Derek. “Um,” he says. “You know, like, when you guys told us you knew we were dating?”

“Me,” Isaac says quickly, because he’s always kind of held the credit for being the one to overhear the truth. “I found out.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says uncomfortably. “Well. Um. We weren’t.”

“Weren’t what?” Allison asks.

Derek shifts a little in his armchair. “Dating,” he says. “We weren’t dating.”

“We are now, though,” Stiles says hurriedly, as though that might be in doubt when his whole body is pressed up against Derek’s, their scents so intertwined that it’s difficult to tell whose is whose if you’re not paying attention.

Scott is looking slightly scandalised. “You _weren’t_ dating?” He looks a little like he might cry, and Isaac instinctively leans into him. “Why did you tell us you were?”

Stiles sighs, rubs the back of his neck, and Isaac finds himself slightly tuning out of the explanation. Derek is still looking fondly up at Stiles as he talks, describes how broken the pack seemed, with Allison just returned and Isaac on the verge of leaving again, and there’s so much fucking love in his face that Isaac figures it doesn’t really matter exactly when it got there.

Allison seems a little upset that Stiles and Derek had thought her so fragile that they hadn’t told her the truth, but Isaac gets it. He’s in a different place now than he was a year ago; he knows now that Scott was absolutely desperate to keep him in Beacon Hills, that they’d all been worried about him, that he’d been a shell of himself. Maybe Stiles is right; maybe finding out he’d got it wrong would have been enough for him to bolt again.

He squeezes Allison’s knee, leans against Scott’s shoulder. He’s glad he didn’t.

“So there _wasn’t_ an ex-boyfriend that you ran into?” Erica asks, frowning.

“No, there was,” Stiles says. “But, like, when Derek offered himself to show off, he was just being nice. As a friend.”

“Guy was a prick,” Derek growls, a touch of real venom in his voice. Stiles laughs fondly and ruffles his hair.

Everyone is talking, Stiles and Scott and Allison and Erica, even Chris contributing, but Isaac just sits back and listens. Listens to Lydia put in, again, that she’s known all along—

—“Fuck that, no you _didn’t_ ,” Stiles protests, until she fixes him with her trademark glare—

—listens to Boyd, muttering that he doesn’t really care but still smiling, tucking a long strand of Erica’s hair behind her ear. Listens to Scott being indignant—

—“I’m your best friend!” he exclaims, and Stiles scratches his ear and looks guilty—

—listens to Allison telling anyone who will listen that she’s much stronger than anyone gives her credit for, that she could have handled the truth. He doesn’t need to add anything to the conversation: this is his pack, his family. Later on, he’ll get to kiss Scott properly, get to curl up in bed with him and Allison, the way they’re meant to be, and maybe they’ll fuck, or maybe just lie lazily kissing and talking and catching up, and it won’t matter which it is.

Maybe someday soon Erica and Boyd will be announcing that they’re engaged, or maybe it’ll be Chris and Melissa first. Maybe Scott will leave Deaton’s practice, start his own like he’s wanted to for a while. Maybe Lydia will take over the world – maybe she already has and they just don’t know it yet. Maybe Stiles and Derek will find a new home together, get married, go the distance. Maybe they won’t. Maybe none of it will happen the way Isaac imagines.

There aren’t many certainties in life. Isaac doesn’t know if he’ll graduate, if he and Allison will move in with Scott when they’re done with college. He doesn’t know what career he’ll have, whether he’ll ever have children. But he does know that whatever he does, Scott and Allison will be with him. Whatever supernatural disasters are thrown at them, the pack will stay together. That look that Derek has in his eyes, whenever he looks at Stiles, that’s going to be there forever. The pack, _his_ pack, are going to be there forever.

There aren’t many certainties in life. But as he looks around his pack, all talking over each other and eating chips and laughing at each other, Isaac is certain of that.


End file.
